


Teyla, contemplating

by heynonnynonny



Series: crackfic/badfic/metafic [2]
Category: Fandom - Fandom, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crack, F/F, F/M, M/M, POV Character of Color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-24
Updated: 2011-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-20 16:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heynonnynonny/pseuds/heynonnynonny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Teyla -- diplomat, fighter, leader, shark -- ponders as she wanders (the halls of Atlantis) life, the universe, and how she is so awesome.</p><p>or:</p><p>A story where Teyla and Jennifer are each players in their own way, if not quite together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really didn't plan for the previous one to have any kind of sequel, ever. Notes from the first installment still apply.
> 
> Additional characters and relationships are mentioned in passing.

Teyla wiped the sweat from her brow and delicately dabbed at the drops of perspiration decorating her heaving bosom. She was well-satisfied; of course she had beaten all nine of the eager new Marines into the ground with her amazing stick-fighting skills.

The only one she could not always beat was Ronon, but it was good to have a challenge once in a while. This afternoon, however, she had made Ronon babysit Torren so she could keep the entertainment of first stomping all over the egos of the newest batch of Marines so eager to prove themselves superior to herself.

Sometimes she owed it to herself to do something fun.

And although she enjoyed both of those activities too, the girls' poker night Elizabeth had introduced her to and watching the Football DVDs John had recommended did not give quite the same sense of physical satisfaction as smacking down several fit -- by the standards of their planet -- young males. Especially when she suspected some of the young Marines might still be more biased against aliens, people of color, women, and awesome warrior princesses than she felt they ought to be.

Regularly taking all their coffee and chocolate credits from her female friends during poker night was very enjoyable in its own way, as was asking John to re-explain the rules of Football -- earnestly interrupting him to ask how did yellow cards, rucks, and wickets apply again? -- every time they watched one of the DVDs together.

Rodney had tried to introduce her to Doctor Who DVDs, but she had found the storylines simplistic and derivative compared to many Old Athosian epics. And in her wisdom she had not only seen how much John enjoyed being the primary friend to watch those DVDs with Rodney but had realized what it meant years before they did.

So when she and Rodney were working together on his reports to the IOA -- he dictated, she typed and added a diplomatic veneer that had increased his funding allocation by 25% since she started helping, he ensured her SGC consultant's salary was at the same level as Teal'c and Vala's and her health benefits package covered not only herself but Kanaan and Torren in perpetuity -- Rodney occasionally put on classical music they both enjoyed.

However, for her Earth culture exposure DVDs, in her heart of hearts Teyla preferred borrowing the Pavarotti Live!, The Professionals, and Iron Chef box-sets Richard owned. He was gracious enough to let her borrow them repeatedly as she was careful to keep Torren from handling the discs and -- apparently unlike some people whose borrowing privileges he'd revoked -- returned them in good condition.

Iron Chef was an especially guilty pleasure. She loved watching it and made somewhat embarrassing -- if anyone ever got to hear them -- noises of joy and cheering at times. Yet she knew her own talents did not lie in that direction, even though she occasionally baked birthday treats just to watch the recipients' very entertaining reactions.

She had not discussed it with Samantha during her tenure on Atlantis so she was not certain if Samantha derived the same kind of enjoyment from these small pleasures Teyla herself did.

Naturally Teyla had heard stories of Samantha's baking for friends in the SGC infirmary from several SGC personnel rotating through Atlantis. And Teyla had to admit to herself that whether Samantha was in on the joke or not, watching her bravely try to chew through one of the oatmeal-substitute/derrit-berry cookies Teyla had baked her for her birthday had been, as Teyla had learned from exposure to the dominant Earth culture present on Atlantis, "priceless."

The end results had been most enjoyable too. The bottles of Ruus wine Teyla had brought as Samantha's actual birthday present had helped wash down the _two_ \-- admirable determination! -- cookies Samantha had managed to eat. And by the time the others had left and she and Samantha had finished off the fifth bottle together, tumbling each other down onto Samantha's bed had been not only inspired but inevitable.

Samantha had been surprisingly sure of herself, sometimes going so far as to take the lead when Teyla let her, and the occasional evenings they had spent learning each other's bodies and thrills before Samantha's return to Earth had been a pleasure in and of themselves, even beyond helping temporarily distract Teyla from her anxiety about about Kanaan and the rest of her people being missing.

Samantha had sent Teyla warmly congratulatory messages -- on Torren's birth, the retrieval of Kanaan and her people and on Jennifer managing to reverse, for most of the survivors, the modifications Michael had made to them -- as well as several very cute "onesies" for the baby with the next Daedalus shipment. By return shipment, to congratulate or commiserate with her over her position as acting head of the SGC, Teyla had sent Samantha more Ruus wine, repeated when she'd gained command of her ship, and when rumors of Samantha's next promotion had reached Teyla.

Although her relationship with the current expedition leader was not nearly as close as with the previous ones -- Teyla still missed Elizabeth -- Richard had turned out to be much more sensible and less rigid than he had initially seemed.

He continued to like the proprieties and held fast to a certain type of structure, and Teyla believed it would take another few years before Richard would allow himself to be intimate with anyone he considered himself to have authority over. But he was frequently amenable to her suggestions on how to make things actually work in Pegasus, and once he'd explained double-entry bookkeeping and the importance of subtle uses of design in annual fiscal reports to her, together they had come up with several satisfactory improvements to the expedition's official and unofficial financial needs and goals statements.

Walking through the hallways on the way back to her quarters, Teyla mused that Jennifer had been another pleasant surprise.

Initially uncertain and seemingly ill at ease, she had proven herself to be a very competent physician and eventually, a good friend.

Elizabeth had thought highly of her, and had particularly requested her addition to the expedition's roster, Teyla knew. But the many months it had taken for Jennifer to actually come to Atlantis, as well as Elizabeth's loss a mere half-cycle later, meant that Teyla had not immediately warmed to young Doctor Keller.

However, once Jennifer had joined poker night at Laura's invitation she had proven to be a decent opponent, using her apparent innocent youthfulness to occasionally even _win_. At that point Teyla had realized she ought to get to know her better.

Although Jennifer had not accepted Teyla's invitation for private meditation sometime -- pink-cheeked, Jennifer had explained that she didn't sleep with female friends anymore as it always ended up making things awkward somehow, after which Teyla had raised an eyebrow in the most serene fashion possible so that Jennifer had adorably blushed even more and said she was sorry if she'd misinterpreted anything, but yes of course she'd like to come over for tea, just tea, and she'd really like to get to know Teyla better even if not in that way and ohgod she was just mortifying herself here wasn't she and well but she'd still like to be Teyla's friend if maybe Teyla had somehow missed realizing by now that she was way too cool for Jennifer and should she leave now and find a hole to crawl into or...? -- so Teyla had subtly adjusted her stance, invited Jennifer in for tea, and figured out how to set Jennifer most completely at ease in the shortest possible time.

By the time they'd had several more poker nights as well as (just) tea a few times, Teyla had discovered that Jennifer had an entertainingly bawdy sense of humor as long as it was not focused on herself and was willing to trade all kinds of gossip if it wasn't too closely related to her own department.

Once Jennifer had settled in, her eye had started roving in an amusing way. Watching Chuck, who thought of himself as quite the ladies' man, get the sunniest of smiles and not the least hint that Jennifer remembered him in any way other than as the nice young man who worked in the gateroom after that mainland harvest festival had heightened her opinion of Jennifer's poker skills considerably.

Teyla's respect for her information management skills had similarly increased after she'd observed Jennifer consecutively date and successfully break up with two members of the same social sciences subdepartment within six weeks without anyone else apparently ever being the wiser.

Teyla _had_ gently but firmly made it clear to Jennifer that she could do whatever she wanted with any of the expedition members not on Teyla's own team. However, if she caused serious emotional damage to anyone on Teyla's team, Teyla would be quite displeased.

A little awkwardly but earnestly, Jennifer had promised to do her best since she really valued Teyla's friendship and her team-members seemed very interesting too, and wow, Ronon was really hot wasn't he? although she confessed that once feelings got involved she kind of wasn't always the most rational but yes she'd certainly be as careful as she could.

Fortunately, with Teyla using her skills to help smooth over some of the rough edges after Jennifer's aborted first courtship of Ronon, her relatively long period (for both of them) of dating Rodney and near-engagement to him before she started playing the field again and her eventual rediscovering of Ronon's many fine features, they'd all managed to stay friendly. Even, Teyla thought with a hint of -- perfectly justified, she felt -- smugness at her own prowess, good enough friends that not only work situations but social interactions in various combinations continued to be pleasant and enjoyable.

Having arrived at her quarters, Teyla waved a hand to open the door and when she didn't see Ronon in the main room, radioed him.

"Nah," Ronon said, "A bunch of us are doing a cookout on Pier Four -- some holiday of the Earthers' -- and Torren's having a blast, plenty of us here to keep an eye on him. He had a good nap in Woolsey's office earlier, so unless you want me to bring him back already I'll keep him with me until we're done. Or until you get here, if you feel like coming to get some hamburg and coleslaw later?"

She thanked Ronon and said she might come by in an hour or two.

After a quick shower, she sat down at her laptop and looked at the files in her "personal fun" folder.

One partial outline, one stalled WIP, two half-completed essays -- one on gender, race, and othering; the second on irony, attraction, and marginalization relating to temporal or cultural distance from source texts -- and Jennifer's Big Bang, which needed a last read-through before she sent it back to her.

Teyla had not wanted to let John and Rodney know the reason for Jennifer not joining in the most recent round of the bizarre but entertaining recurring ritual John and Rodney had established.

Although of course Teyla did not restrict herself to only one source text and she knew Ronon found fodder for amusement in a variety of places and mediums, she knew that John and Rodney rarely ventured outside the area they were familiar with. (Except for the rare crossover, or the arguments between the two of them -- which could get ridiculously vicious despite the fact that they managed to continue to ignore the growing body of academic scholarship on the subject -- on exactly how early there were indications of the canonicity of Kirk/Spock.)

Teyla had, however, determined that as _their_ friend, she would never tell them that Jennifer had been too busy to take part in the extended team's flurry of concentrated reading, critiquing, and commenting on this particular set because she had been working on her own Big Bang in a fandom that even Evan considered too fluffy to take seriously.

Yet as _Jennifer's_ friend, and as the person who had recruited Jennifer into considering fandom activities to begin with, Teyla felt obligated to cheer her on in writing her first Big Bang and to offer to beta her work. Even though Teyla also certainly considered Jennifer's new fandom to be-- That is, she had been unable to locate any well-considered meta (three dozen picspams captioned with squeeful variations of "omg so preeetttyy!!" did not count) on _any_ of the main pairings in that particular fandom.

Ignoring the documents already in her folder, Teyla instead opened the list of kinkmeme prompts and decided to work on a quick fill. If she hurried she could get it done, encrypted, and queued up before the daily check-in and data-transfer with the SGC and still get down to the pier in time for the fireworks....

* * * * 


	2. bonus content

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 **How well do you feel the artwork matched the story?**

 **Answers:**  
"I would have liked it if it the way Teyla was leaning into Jennifer at the doorway had been more obvious, but Jennifer's chibi eyes were great."  
"Wait, that was supposed to be _Keller_?"  
"Why were John and Rodney not in the art? How can it be SGA art if there is no Rodney and John!"

 

 **To encourage more participation next year, if there are enough fans left, should the fest mods:**  
A. Combine forces with other character-specific fests?  
B. Schedule the fest so it does not overlap or conflict with the writing and posting dates of any other fests in this or any other major fandoms?  
C. Allow stories shorter than 1000 words and/or lift the restriction on underage, noncon, and Wraith/human pairings?  
D. Promise every participant a pony and the baked goods of their choice?

 **Answers:**  
"b and a, just be sure to also check that national holidays won't interfere with signup dates or posting schedules."  
"A - with crossovers. When Steve met Teyla or when Danny met Ronon, I'd pimp that."  
"C!!! My friend and I have this great idea where Weir is the evil headmistress of boarding school and Koyla is her secret lover and there is lost of abuse, and the, and then, but then the, and it will be like the best AU ever!"  
"Can I have a pony now instead of later?"


End file.
